Andrew Zow Is Hired As Montevallo High School Head Football CoachALABASTER, Alabama -- Andrew Zow has been hired as the new head football coach at Montevallo High School. Zow talks coaching at a small school and how his offensive schemes will be based on player personnel beginning with linemen. (The Birmingham News/Solomon Crenshaw, Jr.)

COLUMBIANA, Alabama -- Andrew Zow will tell you that he had successes and failures during his career as a quarterback at Alabama.

Zow has accepted a new challenge as the head football coach at Montevallo High School.

"The up-and-down career I had at Alabama makes me a better man today," the 33-year-old father of three said. "My career was up and down because I didn't play every year on a fulltime basis. It made me understand being a team player. It made me understand being able to support your team even though you're not on the field."

Zow has twice run his own business in Birmingham. But each time, he returned to football.

Thursday, the Shelby County Board of Education approved Zow as a physical education teacher at Montevallo and the head football coach of the Bulldogs.

"Even when I was in college, I've always been that guy who loved the game of football," he said. "I wanted to be around the game of football, just to be active. Once I got out and coached for a year and I loved it."

Zow was an assistant at Union County High, where he was a standout in Lake Butler, Fla., before starting a business in Birmingham. While his business was his vocation, his avocation remained coaching.

"I would do camps, private lessons with kids," he said. "Then it got to the point where I would love to do this on a fulltime basis and possibly be a head coach one day at the high school level."

Zow returned to Union County as the head coach for three seasons. His teams went 15-16, including an 8-3 mark in 2008.

The former Tider returned to business in Birmingham but "the itch" had not subsided.

"It just overwhelmed me," he said. "You know what, man, I just want to be a part of kids and their future and what they do. I said I was going to do that."

Zow was an assistant coach at Oak Mountain in 2011, working with quarterbacks under head coach Jeff Harris.

Zow lists several successes during his time at Alabama playing under head coaches Mike DuBose and Dennis Franchione. Those included winning the Tide's bowl game his senior year and getting back on the field and being able to finish his career "on a good note."

He was on the Alabama team that won the SEC championship in 1999. He said his moves in and out of the Tide lineup have made him a better man and a better coach.

"I understand athletes from their point of view," Zow said. "It's one of those things where you learn from it, good or bad. I felt like I learned from it. Like anything in life, you continue to improve and you try not to make those same mistakes in life."

Zow replaces Jamie Williams, who stepped down from being head coach at Montevallo. The school board approved transferring Williams to Oak Mountain to take the health teacher post that Zow had filled there.

Williams was 7-13 in two seasons with the Bulldogs.

Zow's hiring was one of two head coaching positions filled at Thursday night's board meeting. Former Corner coach Brent Smith was hired as a physical education teacher and takes the head football coaching post at Shelby County High left vacant when Ryan Herring resigned to be the head coach at Lincoln.

Herring was 40-25 in six seasons, including 4-6 in 2011. Smith spent seven of the past nine seasons at Corner,
from 2003-2006 and 2009-2011, with two seasons at Clay-Chalkville
(2007-08). He's compiled a 38-55 record as a head coach, including a 6-5
mark at Corner last season that ended with a playoff loss to Deshler.